Do I Have To Write Just Because I Need To Write? Poem by Shalom Freedman

Do I have to write just because I need to write?
Even when I have nothing to write?
I am answering this question now
By writing when I really have nothing to write
Except to write about writing and not writing
As if my writing or not writing
Could be important to anyone but myself

And so, it seems now
These lines are a kind of therapy
A self-help undertaking
With little meaning for anyone else

And they are thus consonant
With so much of what I have done

A lifetime of writing words
That have meant very little to others

And are thus perhaps
As meaningless as I am striving
By writing these lines now
Not to feel.